Eona - Alison Goodman [180]
“What?”
“The black folio is our only chance to take the dragon power.”
“What do you mean, ‘take it’?”
“With the String of Pearls,” Ido said. “We can have our power a hundredfold. Just think of what we could do.”
I stepped back. “That’s insane. It’s a weapon.”
“No, listen to me.” He shot another glance at Dillon, gauging his approach. “We are the last two Ascendant Dragoneyes. If anyone can contain all the dragon power instead of releasing it as a weapon, it is us.”
“Contain it? How?”
“In our bodies, together, like we do when you compel me.” He licked his cracked lips. “Do you remember what I told you after the King Monsoon? What I read in the black folio? The String of Pearls requires the joining of sun and moon.”
Sun and moon: it was Kygo’s endearment. The resonance caught in my chest like a hand gripping my heart. “I remember you coercing me,” I said, pushing my desolation into anger. “I remember you taking my will.”
“I think you’ve had your revenge,” Ido said dryly.
It was true; I had done the same to him, over and over again.
“We are a pair, Eona,” he said. “I know you are as drawn to me as I am to you.” The intensity of his eyes held me. “We are the sun and moon: the male Rat Dragoneye and the female Mirror Dragoneye. Together we can have all of the dragon power.”
“To do what, Ido—rule the land? Is that your plan?”
“I told you before, chaos brings opportunity.”
“So you brought chaos upon us to create your opportunity?”
“And yours,” he said.
I shook my head at his arrogance. “Even if we get the folio, two Dragoneyes cannot control everything.”
“If we take all the dragon power, we’ll be far beyond Dragoneyes. We will be gods; it is the real promise of the black folio.” Dillon was closing the distance rapidly: less than five hundred lengths. Ido’s voice quickened. “You felt the hunger for more power when we moved the cyclone. Do not deny it.”
I had felt it, and I knew he could see it on my face. “That does not mean I want all the power.”
He gave a pained laugh. “Eona, wake up! The choice is either no power or all the power. There is no middle ground. Kygo will not give up the pearl, and that means our power will soon be gone with the beasts.”
“But we would destroy the dragons.”
He gripped my shoulder as if I was a young child having to hear a hard lesson. “You know by now that there is always a price.”
“But we can’t do that,” I said. “They are part of the land.”
“I do not wish to lose my power, Eona. Do you?” He doubled over again, struggling to keep his head up. “We must keep the folio.” Urgency and pain stripped his voice into breath. “Are you ready?”
Dillon was less than fifty lengths away.
For a moment, fear sucked all sense from my mind. All I could see was a demon running toward me.
There was no flesh left on his bones. His face had been reduced to yellowed skin stretched across the sharp shape of his skull, his pumping arms and hands all swollen joints and knuckles. His eyes were dark holes of black power—ghost eyes—sunken into their sockets. Every step he took sprayed blood and matter, both feet worn to pulp from days and days of relentless running. Everything had been carved away by the driving force of the folio.
Ido grabbed my hand, bringing me back to myself. His hard grip dug the edge of the blood ring into my flesh. “Together,” he said.
He took a breath, seeking a path to the celestial plane, his usual smooth rhythm broken by the ragged draw of pain. I held my own breath as he fought to shift into the energy world. Finally, his eyes silvered into union with the Rat Dragon. The moment echoed deep in my core, bringing an ominous wave of nausea.
Ido’s hand convulsed around mine. “Holy gods!”
Black power surged across the silver in his eyes, like oil across water. I jerked back in reflex, but Ido’s iron grip held me at the length of our outstretched arms. The black folio was inside his dragon power. I could feel